My musing as a Mom, Business Leader, Techie and Whatever Else

Book

Well its certainly been a while since I have posted here. This past year has introduced a wide variety of things that have slowed down my blog posts.

First up, we released our latest book! Beginning SharePoint 2010: Building Business Solutions with SharePoint. This book was a major effort and consumed the majority of my non-business time related to the world of SharePoint in the past year. Of course, it was a joint effort between my most awesome co-authors, Shane Perran, Jennifer Mason and Laura Rogers. So far feedback on this book has been great and I think it is an excellent asset for anyone that is getting started with SharePoint 2010 that is either completely new or has had prior experience with a previous version.

Another reason for the slow down has been a major extension to our little family. Shane and I now have a daughter, Dylan Perran. She is an amazing little girl and a total breath of fresh air that was much needed in the past year between professional life and an illness in the household. She has introduced a whole new role to my life as a mother and its one that I am enjoying tremendously.

So now that things have settled down a bit, I am looking forward to getting back into writing. I am currently on Maternity Leave from work so its nice to spend some time with technology that is more around discovery, research and investigation and less about projects and timelines.

Shane and I are also planning to launch a new site in the near future but we will be cross posting for a while on our existing blogs.

Shane was recently profiled by the MVP program as part of their MVP Insider series. I actually didn’t see his answers till I received an email about it via our MVP lead pointing to his responses. You can check his responses out here.

Quote from article:

“What is the best thing that has happened since you have become an MVP?

I got engaged since becoming an Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), so that outranks all professional accomplishments. In terms of big accomplishments professionally though, the release of my book with Amanda Murphy, “Beginning SharePoint 2007” is something I am pretty proud of.”

I was impressed to see that he considered our engagement the greatest accomplishment he has had in the past year and then it was the release of our book. Good to see he has his priorities right. =-)

I am always a little slow to jump on the Tech Ed blogging wagon but I will be there once again this year. Look for me hanging out at the INETA booth, Birds of a Feather sessions as well a variety of technical sessions. Chances are if the word SharePoint is being said, I will probably be around somewhere.

I have also been invited to be a panelist for the Women in Technology Luncheon which is a HUGE honor for me and something I am very much looking forward to. This luncheon (open to any attendee) is one of the highlights of the week and has become very popular over the past few years. To be asked to participate as a panelist is very exciting for me.

We are also in the talks about possibly doing a book signing at the conference as it looks as though our book will be available during that week. I will update more information on this as it becomes available.

In any event, should be another exciting and action filled week in Orlando. Drop me a line if you are going to be there.

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Update: For those that have been asking, the Women in Technology Luncheon is on Wednesday, June 6th from 11:30 A.M to 2:00 P.M at the Peabody Conference Room. Also the book signing has been confirmed to be 3:00PM on Wednesday at the Bookstore.

Now that our book on SharePoint 2007 is complete, we have been getting quite a few people asking when it will be released and if any portions will be available before launch for review. Unfortunately at this point, the book is out of our hands and going through the very final editing and printing process. However apparently small portions of the book will be released in article format over the next few months on the WROX site to give people a chance to check out a few of the concepts ahead of time. So if you go to the site now, you will be able to read a short article that will guide you through an explanation and the usage of the Approval workflow in MOSS 2007.

For those of you out there that are just getting started with SharePoint or might be expected to become the next guru in your organization for using the out of the box features of SharePoint and customizing them to meet your specific organization’s goals – this book should help get you on your way. One of the things I have always liked about this particular WROX series is the hands on learning style which is why I was thrilled to have the opportunity to write such a book for SharePoint. Of course it helped that I had such a great writing partner too! Anyhow for those of you wondering what the book covers, I have include the Table of Contents below. As you will see we covered a little bit of everything.

1. Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
2. Working with SharePoint Lists.
3. Working with SharePoint Libraries.
4. Managing and Customizing Lists and Libraries.
5. Working with Workflow.
6. Working with Content Types.
7. Working with Web Parts.
8. Working with Sites and Workspaces.
9. User Management, Audiences and Profiles.
10. Working with Forms Services.
11. Working with Excel Services.
12. Working with the Business Data Catalog.
13. Getting Started with Web Content Management.
14. Understanding Search.
Appendix. Answers to Exercises.
Also as Jim Minatel points out on the WROX blog, there are quite a few new books coming down the line for SharePoint. It is really awesome to see such an awesome range of material coming available this early in the game.

Wow it has been too long. My brother reminded me this morning that it has been well over a month since my last post. Time flies eh?

Well as Shane wrote this morning, we have been pretty deep on a few projects this past while. Highest in priority of course being the book which is slowly but surely coming to a state ready for release. I truely cannot wait for the point in time when we can sit back and enjoy our efforts and see it released. I am confident it will be excellent handbook for those of you looking to get your feet wet and understand how to effectively use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to support your team and organization. The book is very much focused on understanding how to apply the out of the box features to common scenarios and offers a LOT of hands on examples. I know for me this is a way I like to learn which is why I have always been a fan of the WROX Beginner series.

In addition to the book there has been an extremely hectic work and travel schedule to keep things moving at light speed pace. I really look forward to having things calm down for a while after March so I can start looking ahead to the rest of the year and making some positive changes in multiple areas of my life…one of which includes getting married which I am looking forward to. Others will be announced when appropriate. Stay tuned!

It doesn’t go into much detail on specific features or programs but it does offer an introduction to the basic functions. It IS a beginner?s book so I guess that is ok. I will do a more formal review once I have gone through the book more thoroughly. I just figured I would point it out now for anyone new Tablet users out there.

Now that the XBox is out of the picture, I can focus my efforts on more important things. Such as reading! I got a new subscription to Safari Online and I LOVE IT. So many books to read…so little time. Sadly I get as excited in a bookstore as most other females get in a clothing store. In fact, its the only place that I enjoy shopping.

The tablet really makes reading even more enjoyable. I just can’t say enough about how sweet it is to curl up in bed each night with the tablet on my lap and a wireless connection. The only thing I would like to improve is battery life but then again, who doesn’t?